Was there any explicit indication that SE is doing a third tier? There's a November interview where Yoshi specifically says what they were considering *was not* "a more difficult version" above savage, but rather a fight (or "content") that was really challenging. So presumably, a super-hard trial of some kind.

I think it'd be fine for such a thing to drop i280-equivalent weapons, as aside from show-off value it could spare those groups the need to detour from the next tier's progression to farm an EX primal; while not greatly impacting balance on the current tier.

But to elongate the content and stop cleared groups from just farming out all the things, I'd make the weapons an achievement award tied to the job you cleared it on - so you get your fists for clearing it on Monk, but if you want the Samurai weapon you'll need to learn, optimize and clear the fight on that. Would give groups a continuous something-to-do deep into the content cycle.